Moving at the pace of a pandemic: How Bio Nano’s fast-moving evolution of COVID data tools is keeping up with the virus
COVIDaction grantee Bio Nano Consulting got a quick start in responding to the pandemic. Through recognising a wide range of issues, the organisation has been able to develop its scenario analysis tool, take on vaccine roll out data and is now looking to help businesses and industries affected by COVID increase their resilience. Dr David Sarphie, Bio Nano CEO describes the pivots in response to the pandemic.
In 2019, few of us were thinking that reports from China about a virus would change our lives and see life as we know it grind to a halt. Dr Sarphie of Bio Nano had just transferred through Wuhan airport enroute to a meeting — and while we all watched news headlines, he had spotted that this virus was starting to sound familiar. “Its description sounded similar to the SARS outbreak in 2003,” he says. “This made it an immediate worry. Once we saw the way it was moving through Italy and other countries, we realised this was going to have a major global impact.”
This foresight meant that Bio Nano was able to deploy its digital team to focus on COVID-related applications, starting with a London COVID-tracker and, later, a COVID travel assistance app.
This initial work moved towards Covidsim, the scenario analysis tool designed to help healthcare officials and public health companies explore scenarios for COVID-19 transmission and make better decisions. It is based on an epidemiological model developed by the MRC-GIDA epidemiology group at Imperial College London. “This team has been at the forefront of epidemic modelling for years,” says Dr Sarphie. “When COVID hit in early 2020, they were quick to adapt their models to develop a mathematical model of the epidemic and its likely trajectory. They approached Bio Nano because of our digital expertise and experience in developing interactive user interfaces.”
“We had always planned that it should eventually incorporate vaccines.”
As the pandemic was quickly spreading, speed was of the essence for providing accessible data in ways that people can easily understand. By April 2020, Bio Nano was deeply involved and within four weeks it had developed a web platform that was being used by people around the world to simulate the epidemic in different countries of interest and assess its likely impact on healthcare resources.
Late last year the key feature for Covidsim was the incorporation of the vaccine roll-out. “We had always planned that it should eventually incorporate vaccines,” says Dr Sarphie. “Once initial data showing the encouraging efficacy of the various vaccines was available, we accelerated this to meet the evolving needs of our users globally. If money were no object, we would expand the team to improve the interface further.”
Evolution at speed
In order to maintain Covidsim as a vital tool in the global response to the pandemic, Bio Nano includes a robust model that is regularly calibrated based on deaths reported from each country. Model fits are checked each week and it is designed to enable users to access a variety of scenarios and the possible impact. With so much of the world now affected by the pandemic, it’s vital that everyone can clearly and easily understand what is happening, “UX is very important,” says Sarphie. “We designed the interface to be intuitive and easy-to-use. We want that experience to be positive.”
As different countries were affected by the spread of COVID-19, the Bio Nano team has continued to work fast, pivoting to address new incoming situations. “In an evolving pandemic, there are always changes to implement to keep the model relevant,” says Dr Sarphie. “We do this continuously, including updating parameters of the various vaccines and their use in different countries.”
Dr Sarphie, came to the UK more than 30 years ago to pursue a PhD in Medical Engineering at Oxford. This led to the creation of an Oxford spin-out that became an early biotech success story called PowderJect. With a foot in both countries and a global outlook, he has a sharp eye on the way that the pandemic is being managed. “Both the U.S. and UK sadly had the wrong people in place to manage the pandemic, especially in its critical early phase,” he says. “Vaccine roll-out, however, in both countries has been successful. Continued messaging is still needed though, especially to encourage minority communities to get vaccinated.”
Looking forward as usual Dr Sarphie has his eye on measuring the impact of the pandemic on business. With industries all over the world taking a hit via border closures, lockdowns and of course a tragic number of global casualties, there will need to be changes in the way the world proceeds. “We are developing a sister platform targeting those industries significantly affected by COVID,” he says. “COVIDLive is designed to help companies in sectors like shipping, logistics, transport, manufacturing and insurance to plan for likely surges in different parts of the world and add some resiliency to supply chains which have been devastated by the pandemic.”
Though the years ahead are likely to bear the mark of the pandemic, the data collected today will still be important for all of those tomorrows. Dr Sarphie and his team have discussed plans to adapt Covidism to become a tool to manage similar unexpected risks that could impact individuals and economies at a global scale.
It’s clear that Dr Sarphie and Bio Nano have plenty of work ahead and that one thing that has been learned over the past year is that data has been vital for preparedness and response. Looking ahead, Bio Nano has plans to develop further, “Our parent company AquAffirm is raising additional investment to develop our digital platforms in COVID and safe water — which is where we started,” he says. “We are working to develop sensors for measuring contaminants of particular global importance — arsenic and fluoride in particular. We are very grateful for the support through COVIDAction and hope that it might continue, potentially through USAID support.”
If you missed it, you can find out more about Covidism in our article here.
For updates, visit covidsim.org and follow @bionanoc, @MRC_Outbreak and @imperialcollege on Twitter.
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